The rainbow of emotions: at the crossroadsof neurobiology and phenomenology

Natalie Depraz

Published online: 5 July 2008

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract This contribution seeks to explicitly articulate two directions of a con-

tinuous phenomenal field: (1) the genesis of intersubjectivity in its bodily basis

(both organic and phylogenetic); and (2) the re-investment of the organic basis (both

bodily and cellular) as a self-transcendence. We hope to recast the debate about the

explanatory gap by suggesting a new way to approach the mind-body and Leib/Korper problems: with a heart-centered model instead of a brain-centered model.

By asking how the physiological dynamics of heart and breath can become con-

stitutive of a subjective (qua intersubjective) point of view, we give an account of

the specific circular and systemic dynamic that we call ‘‘the rainbow of emotions.’’

This dynamic, we argue, is composed of both structural and experiential compo-

nents and better evidences the seamless, non-dual articulation between the organic

and the experiential.

Keywords Emotions � Intersubjectivity � Neurophenomenology �Heart � Coupling

1 Introduction

This contribution seeks to explicitly articulate two directions of a continuous

phenomenal field: (1) the genesis of intersubjectivity in its bodily basis (both

organic and phylogenetic); and (2) the re-investment of the organic basis (both

N. Depraz (&)

Philosophy, University of Rouen, Rouen, France

e-mail: natalie.depraz@univ-rouen.fr

N. Depraz

University of Paris IV, Sorbonne, Paris, France

123

Cont Philos Rev (2008) 41:237–259

DOI 10.1007/s11007-008-9080-y

bodily and cellular) as a self-transcendence, the excess of the organic over itself.1

We aim to revisit the Merleau-Pontian inspired notion of ‘‘intercorporeity,’’ which

thinks the body and intersubjectivity together, so as to more precisely show its

originary affective component. The first of these two movements is directed toward

the living in its basic, elementary form as autopoiesis; it follows the Merleau-

Pontian method of tracing the basic meaning of consciousness back to the living

itself. The second is directed toward the intersubjective sphere; it revisits the

Husserlian method of pursuing the subtler layers of consciousness into non-

individual fields and toward an openness that embodies its transcendence.

We are seeking to give an account of the seamless, non-dual articulation between

the organic and the experiential—an articulation already presented by Husserl as

Korper/Leib. The pivotal ground and center-point of this articulation is the organism

itself, that is, the level of closure/coupling where lived experience is found directly,

and where a practical method can be put into action.2 By weaving together body,

intersubjectivity, and time, we aim to give an account of the specific circular and

systemic dynamic that we call ‘‘the rainbow of emotions,’’ which is composed both

of structural and experiential components. We will describe some key features of

this dynamic and outline four of its dimensions: (1) coupling, (2) valence, (3) heart,

and (4) self-previousness.

One of the salient contributions we hope to make in this article is to recast the

debate about the explanatory gap. We suggest a new way to approach the mind-

body and Leib/Korper problems: with a heart-centered model instead of a brain-

centered one. The leading question then will be: How can the physiological

dynamics of the rhythmicity of the heart and breath become constitutive of a

subjective (qua intersubjective) point of view? Coupling, on the intersubjective

level, and valence, on the affective level, are the initial correlative keystones of this

heart-system model. Self-previousness points to the specific temporality of the

heart. Finally, we suggest the ‘‘rainbow of emotions’’ as an experiential and

descriptive model of the heart system in each of its possible concrete emotions. We

argue that what the heart-system model contributes at the conceptual, theoretical

level can be developed and validated at an experiential, descriptive level by taking

into account a network of concrete and polarized emotions.

2 Coupling: the self-other fold

With the term ‘‘coupling,’’ we intend to indicate that intersubjectivity is a dynamic

relationship—a ‘‘fold’’—that is situated beneath the division between self and other.

1 This project originally matured during discussions and email exchanges with Francisco Varela, as early

as June 1997. We sketched the general structure as it appears in the introduction and then planned to

begin by giving a central role to the articulation between Paarung and acoplamiento under the generic

term of ‘‘coupling.’’2 In this article, we are suspending two investigations that will be at the core of our project. The first of

these is a deeper investigation of the double-faced qualities of the organism, beyond attesting to its

phenomenal truth. Is it possible to understand the organism’s temporalization, its specific generativity?

The second of these investigations asks whether we can understand the heart as the focal place of

emotions, the place where the excess of the body over itself has been traditionally pointed out.

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The structure of the fold is undivided, in the same way one speaks of a ‘‘joint

account’’ when different members of a family collectively govern a household.

Though different partners are involved, primacy is given to its coalition. The image

of the ‘‘fold’’3 is remarkably illustrative of this unitary process, because the crease

of the folding indicates a clear distinction without bringing about a disjunctive

separation. In order to provide this general, formal structure with concrete contents,

we will evoke different examples deriving from various fields: the archaic felt

affective link (both biological and intersubjective) between a child and her mother;

sexual intercourse as the apprenticeship of a mutual letting-go; the tonglen practice

in Tibetan Buddhism as a practice of exchanging places with the other; the three

Persons of the Trinity in Christian theology as exemplary of the experience of

reciprocal circularity. These examples are not intended to be exhaustive or

exclusive. In that respect, they are not meant to produce a closed meaning. They are

intended as heuristics to facilitate further investigation. Thus, should they become

obstacles, by all means just throw them out!

Consider two experiential-conceptual structures where such a fold, which neither

creates confusion nor brings about disjunction, is at work. Both include the same

four components: (1) a bodily anchorage, (2) a temporally founded dynamic, (3) a

relational meaning, and (4) the creation of a linkage that necessarily admits alterity.

These structures can be found, on the one hand, in Husserlian genetic phenom-

enology under the name Paarung and, on the other hand, in the Chilean school of

autopoiesis under the name acoplamiento. We would like to compare both

descriptions of the coupling experience in order to show their complementarity,

their potential mutual enrichment, as well as their irreducible differences.

The phenomenological structure of Paarung, in its basic meaning, indicates a

relationship between (1) sensory fields or data (visual, tactile, acoustic) that are

characterized by (2) experientially circular time-dynamics, and whose (3) relation

involves a double chiasmatic crossing of Korper and Leib, which is accomplished

by means of (4) a passive associative synthesis.4 In short, Paarung is the key

relational structure of two elements that enter into an associative synthesis—a

synthesis which is anterior to all objectifying identifications. Paarung contributes to

the elucidation of intersubjectivity insofar as it reveals its deep bodily anchorage,

but it is also a process that links sensory data in the kinesthetic framework or in the

temporal dynamic of retentions with the impressional present. This associative link

involves an originary relationality through which each ego is intrinsically

constituted. Therefore, both externalism (empiricism) and representationalism

(idealism) are irrelevant to this basic scheme.

The structure of acoplamiento, on the other hand, has a (1) bodily component that

does not correspond to the link between sensory modalities, but rather to the far

broader relationship between an organism and its environment. This bodily link is

not symmetrical but inclusive. Whereas, in the case of Paarung, there is a kind of

3 About the image of the fold, cf. Depraz et al. (2003, pp. 41–43).4 Cf. Husserl (2001a, b); Depraz (2001a, pp. 169–178), where the four different levels (bodily-passive,

imaginative-active, linguistic-interpretative and ethical-emotional) of the Paarung are detailed. Here we

only deal with the first level.

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interactive reciprocity between sensory modalities (fields or data), in acoplamiento,

the organism is situated within an environment, like a part within a whole. The (2)

time-dynamics of this organic coupling between organism and natural context is

called an ‘‘auto-poiesis,’’ from the very name of the Chilean School, because

through it the organism emerges in its integrity by virtue of its very relationship

with its environment. The organism does not develop in isolation from what

happens around it; it is literally created (hence poien) by nature, while at the same

time modifying both nature and itself. In this respect, autopoiesis more accurately

describes what in the phenomenological structure of Paarung is generally presented

as an experiential circularity, because the former stresses that the autonomy of the

living (‘‘self’’) is the very result of its contextual dependence.

The (3) relational component of acoplamiento, although it is (at first sight

paradoxically) illustrated with the image of the individual organism closing in upon

itself, involves a doubled crossing of the objective and subjective components of the

body. The closure involved in this crossing is said to be ‘‘operational’’ (clausuraoperacional), because of the way that context nourishes the very autonomy of the

living being. It is precisely thanks to its openness to its immediate constitutive

environment that the individual organism accomplishes its autonomy—a process

which reveals alterity as constitutive of the identity of the living being.5

The structure of synthesis at work in the experience of Paarung is, in a similar

way, a passive association; it includes a contrast between sensory data, which are

constitutive of bodily experience, that never amounts to a rigidly closed identity, but

always to a moving and mobile reality.6 In sum, the concept of acoplamiento as

operational closure helps us understand the possibility of an individual that is at one

and the same time altered by its context according to a ‘‘natural drift,’’7 and self-

generated in virtue of its own inner dynamics. Here, too, both empiricism and

representationalism are nonsensical within such a framework.

The phenomenological account of Paarung and the biological account of

acoplamiento similarly attend to an alterity at the very core of the self-constitution

of the living individual’s bodily identity. It is important to point out, however, that

the scope of the bodily experiences they describe is different; the inclusive

organism/environment structure is not coincident with the mutual relationship

between two lived bodies. The account of Paarung is interesting for its strong

intersubjective structuring, which allows for the extension of the account of organic-

based coupling to the level of the relationship between persons. The account of

acoplamiento enables the investigation of extremely elementary organic functions

(unicellular) and thus can contribute to a more detailed analysis of the kinesthetic

sensory level.

5 ‘‘Operational’’ needs to be taken quite literally, in its practical meaning of what is being put to work. It

designates the very praxis of the living being in its openness to its environment. It might in some sense

evoke Husserl’s notion of fungierende Intentionalitat, and Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of intention-alite operante. Varela does not refer to these authors in his development of this point. It seems to me that

the phenomenologists use ‘‘operation’’ to designate non-objectifying lived experience, whereas Varela

had in mind the radical working or effectuation of the living being.6 Maturana and Varela (1998); Varela (1980/1987).7 Varela et al. (1991, Chap. 9).

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We now turn our attention to the affective meaning of these sensory and organic

accounts of coupling, in order to attest to the intricacy between sensations and

experiential bodily experience, on the one hand, and affect, on the other.

3 Valence: the attraction–repulsion dynamic

Our contention in this section is that affect is originally embedded in the bodily self-

other coupling, at the phenomenological level (Paarung) as well as at the biological

level (acoplamiento). We would like to show how affect is at work at the very

origination of life as a movement. The focus of our phenomenological approach will

thus be more generative than genetic; our biological approach will be both

evolutionary and neurological. In the domain of genetic-generative phenomenology,

the movement (e-motion) that informs the initial self-other folded coupling is called

‘‘affection;’’ in the realm of evolutionary neurobiology it is referred to as ‘‘valence,’’

and in psychology it is commonly referred to as ‘‘emotion.’’ Each of these terms,

from distinct perspectives, name complementary aspects of the affective dimension

that originally permeates intersubjective relations.

‘‘Valence’’ emerges from evolutionary neurobiological research and accounts for

the originary move of life within living beings; it points to the micro-bodily

generation of intersubjectivity within what is probably the most archaic part of our

bodily functioning: the subpersonal neuro-vegetative system. At this level of

functioning, our body is essentially governed by primary, involuntary attractions

and repulsions. ‘‘Valence’’ seems to be an appropriate name for this micro-bodily

dynamic, because it both speaks to the originary polarization of affective sensory

modalities (negative/positive) and indicates the way that this underlying subper-

sonal dynamic occasions and informs the initial dynamic of our interpersonal

relationships. In our encounters with others, we immediately feel if we are attracted

or repelled by somebody. This attraction/repulsion dynamic is deeply anchored in

our somatic organization and it often reveals itself through the most archaic sensory

modality of taste. One need only note the axiological alternative of gust/disgust and

its affective transposition as pleasure/displeasure. This is precisely the pendular,

binary functioning of our bodily attitude that the term ‘‘valence’’ describes—a

dynamic that is reflected at the neurobiological level through the activation of the

amygdala and the hippocampus brain areas.8

A binary dynamic of this type is found at each level, be it neuro-vegetative/

subpersonal, sensory/perceptive, or psychological. Although we contend that it

originates at the archaic level of neuro-vegetative impulses, we don’t want to go so

far as to cast such an originary level as the absolute explanatory one. Such a move

would amount to advocating a reductionist attitude, which is certain to deliver one-

sided results. While it is important not to overlook the importance of this primary

anchoring of intersubjectivity, the self-other coupling is not reducible to neuro-

vegetative valence. The sensory and psychological levels importantly enhance the

whole scope of the account of intersubjective coupling. On the one hand,

8 Pankseep (1998); Derryberry and Tucker (1992).

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‘‘affection’’ refers to the phenomenological features of this attraction/repulsion

dynamic. Husserl engages in detailed analyses of the dynamic of allure (Reiz) and

disappointment (Enttauschung) that informs the subject’s relationships to otherness

(though his focus is primarily on the perceptive-, object-oriented aspect of this

dynamic). ‘‘Emotion,’’ on the other hand, captures the psychological dimension of

constituted affects, by means of which the individual ceaselessly oscillates, for

example, between suffering and rejoicing, hating and loving, anxiety and

tranquility.9

We maintain that there is a continuity between neuro-vegetative dispositions and

sensory perceptive activities, that neither level enjoys an explanatory primacy over

the other, but rather that both levels are mutual constraining and enriching. In this

article, we wish to remain at the organic, somatic level of analysis in order to allow

the conjunction of valence and affection to arise.

The continuous field of affect, including both valence and affection, constitutes

the core of the temporalization process.10 How is it that the originary move of the

living, in its immediate constitution through the otherness it encounters, may unfold

itself as temporalization? Isn’t there a gap between bodily movement, valence,

alteration and temporality? If their common ground lies in the process-dynamics of

the living, where is the unitary experiential basis of such a phenomenon?

4 The heart as a self-transcending physiological system: a response to theexplanatory gap

These four dimensions of our bodily intersubjective experience are not as

heterogeneous as they might first appear. Bodily movement, affect, alterity, and

temporality, we contend, are different names given, at upper experiential levels, to a

unique concrete experience. An exemplary concrete bodily mode of access to this

vital dynamic is through the organ of the heart, insofar as it opens the way for the

basic rhythmicity of our existence as living, related beings.

Our hypothesis is that the heart is a self-transcending physiological system. Let

us characterize more precisely what we mean by the idea of ‘‘bodily self-

transcendence.’’ To describe this originary movement of the lived body, we first rely

on Richir’s argument that the body is characterized by an inner excess that is both

inherent in it and trespasses it. This is evidenced when the physical limitations of

our body are trespassed once we are also able to become conscious of them.11 Many

discussions in the cognitive sciences since the 1940s have broached the issue of the

relationship between the body, the mind, the brain, and the environment, with more

or less reductionist options: from various forms of eliminativism, which reduce the

9 We therefore speak below of a ‘‘rainbow of emotions,’’ because emotions refer to multifarious,

differentiated, and strongly constituted ‘‘states,’’ while affect refers to a more basic valence-laden

movement towards the object.10 Varela and Depraz (2005); Depraz (1994).11 Cf. Richir (1993): ‘‘[Le] lieu du ‘vivre incarne’ n’est pensable dans l’experience que s’il y a, en

quelque sorte, dans le corps, quelque chose qui excede le corps, qui tend a s’en echapper, et par rapport a

quoi le corps paraıtra toujours plus ou moins limite [...]’’ (7).

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mind to the brain, and the body to external behavior; to enactivism, which proves to

be the most dynamic and systemic approach to the phenomenon. We want to follow

and radicalize the enactive line of thought by introducing the concept of self-

transcendence as a process of liberation from every local or closing conception.12

According to this line of thought, self-transcendence corresponds to the dynamic of

the bodily self as a self that contains the inherent ability to create new events from

itself. We contend that, more than the brain, which only materially rules the body

and its immediate context and supports a formal-functionalist approach of

cognition, the heart, as the ‘‘body of the body,’’13 gives us the most basic and

global experience of ourselves as embodied self-present subjects, that is, as subjects

enacting cognition. By attending to the physiology of the heart, we aim to undo the

remnant dichotomy between mind and brain, that is, the residual discontinuity

between the phenomenal and the biological levels.

In order to do so, we will identify various interfaces or transversal spaces in

which such a distinction is no longer operative, and which attest to the structure of

excess of the body over itself: (1) the heart as organic pulsation; (2) the heart as

affective thumos and as Gemut; and (3) the heart as rhythm of spiritual inspiration/

expiration.14

4.1 The organic pulsation of the heart

The heart as a muscle operates as a kind of mechanical pump that is designed to

make the blood circulate throughout the body: along the arteries—which, starting

from the heart ventricles, distribute the blood to the whole body—and along the

veins—which bring the blood back from the capillary blood-vessels to the heart.

The rhythmic pulsation of the heart is characterized by a double, complementary

movement, from the center to the periphery and from the periphery to the center:

contraction (systole) and dilation (diastole). The pendular physiology of the heart, as

a ruler of bodily vitality, attests to a specific phenomenality: the lived rhythm we are

able to capture when we sensorially feel the beats of our heart with pressure of our

hand being placed either on our chest or on the chest of our child or of our beloved.

We sense its growing quickness after a long run or when we are stressed or

emotionally moved; we sense the way our face blushes when we feel shame,

pleasure or jealousy, or the way it pales when we feel fear or anxiety. In short, there

is a strong continuity between the physiological appearance of the heart—its holistic

bodily function as an integrated, circular blood network—and its lived manifes-

tation with respect to concretely expressed feelings, emotions, and affects. What is

indicated in the dictionary as (so it seems) a sheer metaphor—i.e. ‘‘the heart is the

12 Depraz and Mauriac (2006).13 Such an understanding of the ‘‘heart’’ as ‘‘the body of the body’’ stresses the amazingly bodily

character of the heart as center or hearth of the body. The stylistic emphatic expression aims at deepening

the role of the heart within the body as a the fundamental experience of inner feeling. Within the context

of Eastern Christian theology the heart is thus described as the ‘‘body of the body’’ precisely because it

provides us with such an inner self-transcending intensity.14 As a first step, see Depraz (1999).

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seat of the emotions’’—exists in direct continuity with the physiological dynamic

between the heart and the body as a whole.

Recent neuroscientific research shows that emotions are produced in the different

areas of the brain that make up the limbic system (i.e. the hippocampus, amygdala,

and cingular cortex). One might ask: is there any contradiction between a brain-

centered model of neuro-physiological regulation and a heart-centered model of

affectivity? Maybe not, because the functioning of the brain and the one of the heart

are strikingly similar. There is a rather similar structural dynamic at work in the

relationship between the brain and the body as far as sensorimotor functioning is

concerned. Efferent and afferent nerves produce a double movement from the brain-

center to the organ-periphery and vice-versa. The circularity of the nervous system

is responsible for our bodily movements and actions in a way that is parallel to the

way that the circularity of the circulatory system is responsible for our bodily

tonicity and dynamism.

We contend that these two systems exist in an integrated parallelism, each

playing a role complementary to the other. The brain system is more directly action-

oriented, with a primacy given to the objectivation of actions and their formal

cognitive counterpart; whereas the heart system creates the inner dynamics of the

living body and gives access to affective-embodied cognition.

Until now, our description of the organic pulsation of the heart has remained

situated at the correlative level of physiology and psychology, thus providing us

with an interesting continuity between the biological and the phenomenal aspects of

the heart-experience. In order to provide such a psycho-phenomenological level of

analysis with an empirical-transcendental dimension, we need to introduce the

ontological experience of ‘‘pulsional intentionality’’ (Triebintentionalitat).15 Con-

trary to the basic sort of objectifying intentionality, through which we are able to

identify an object, pulsional intentionality is strictly operative, which means that it

does not give a primacy to the result of the intention but rather to the process itself.

As Husserl described it, it is (quite astonishingly) an intentionality without an

object. This non-objectifying movement, in its lived, immanent operation, is

constitutive of the very process of emergence. The dynamics of pulsional

intentionality, we argue, reveal the transcendental-ontological aspect of the organic

pulsation of the heart.

4.2 Thumos and Gemut as integrative dimensions of the heart

The brain and heart systems are not only parallel in the sense of being formally

correlative. They are also mutually constraining, in the methodological sense that

Varela proposed in his model for the reciprocal generativity of first-person and

third-person approaches to cognition. In that respect, the first advantage of the heart-

centered model is that the heart system is double-faced in the same way as the body

15 The German concept ‘‘Trieb,’’ used widely by Freud and invoked by Husserl in his later manuscripts,

was first commonly translated in English psychoanalytic literature as ‘‘instinct,’’ but has more recently

(and more aptly) been rendered by the term ‘‘drive.’’ The French translation of ‘‘Trieb’’ is ‘‘pulsion,’’ the

English cognate of which is being employed here because of the way that it preserves the continuity

between Triebintentionalitat and the pulsation of the heart. See Depraz (2001c).

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system as a whole: it is both objective and subjective, physical and lived. In

German, we benefit from two different words to describe such a distinction. In the

same way that the Korper/Leib polarity distinguishes between the physical body and

the lived body but also describes the unified reality of the body (‘‘corps’’ in French)

as seen from two perspectives; Herz refers to the objective, physical heart, while

Gemut refers to the heart as lived, both being two aspects of the one reality of the

heart (‘‘cœur’’ in French). The brain system, by contrast, remains one-sidedly

physical and objective. For this reason, it is limited to the third-person approach, for

which the mind or consciousness can only appear as ‘‘correlative’’ (though

irreducible) dimensions.

Similar to the way the Korper/Leib system indicates the relation between the

physical and phenomenal aspects of embodiment, the heart system furnishes us with

the relation between the physical and phenomenal aspects of affectivity. Further-

more, it deepens the integrative complexity that is already furnished by the Korper/Leib system, in so far as it enables us to articulate the subpersonal, neural aspects of

emotional mechanisms (via the limbic system, and the physiology of blood

circulation) with the immanent lived, expressive aspects of emotions at the

subjective phenomenal level. To empirically and more concretely elaborate how the

heart system bridges (i.e. unifies) the physical and phenomenal dimensions, one

would have to investigate the self-regulation inherent in the thymic system and its

ability to increase immunity not by resisting aggressions from the outside, but by

welcoming them as parts of one’s own thymicity.16 A correlative transcendental

way to elaborate this bridge can be found in contemporary psychotherapy and ethics

in the investigation of the status of the person as an individuated and integrated

unity with intrinsic relational abilities.17 In both contexts, the heart is a central

experience, both as a thymic regulator of the integrity of the subject and as an

indicator of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the subject’s relations with others

as a persons.

In this light, it is also interesting to explore other words that reference the heart at

a generic subjective level, not to prove or explain anything, but only to confirm the

validity of our contention about the heart-system. In Plato, for example, thumosrefers to a vital force that is situated beyond or beneath the body/soul distinction.18

The same linguistic root is shared by the thymic system, the modern name given to

the physiological system that is linked to humoral dispositions. Thumos also

indicates the articulation between the heart (the Latin cordis, which is manifested in

the English adjective ‘‘cordial’’) and the virtue of courage.19 Besides, contra the

post-Cartesian brain-centered, physiological model of cognition and perception,

Aristotle’s approach is in many ways heart-centered. For, just as he claims that the

eye is the seat of sight, Aristotle claims that the heart is the seat of all the sensory

16 Varela shows such a generative continuity of first- and third-person approaches with regard, not to the

heart, but to the thymic system and its self-regulative function in the framework of immunology. Cf.

Varela (1997).17 Boszormenyi-Nagy (1987); Michard (1991).18 Plato (1997).19 Tellenbach (1961, Chap. 2).

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capacities, as well as motor and nutritive capacities.20 In Eckhart as well as in Kant,

for example, Gemut also accounts for the global, broadly affective notion of

subjectivity, which encompasses the different faculties, and even Geist insofar

Gemut endows the latter with a non-exclusively intellectual meaning.21 Further-

more, the heart is the locus of a remarkable spiritual opening, which is exemplarily

manifest in the Eastern orthodox heart-prayer.

From the most subpersonal, neural dimensions of the limbic system to the most

personal, spiritual dimension of the heart-prayer, the heart may be unfolded in a

multiplicity of levels via the inner circular physiology of the blood system, its

psychic expressivity through sensory modalities, as well as its felt proto-ethical

meaning as thumos and Gemut.22 Of course, that there is a generative discursive

tradition according to which the heart is taken as embracing both the physiological

and phenomenal dimensions, doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an ontologicalarticulation of these two levels. Our claim is rather that the generative discursive

reference to the heart as the seat of emotions is indicative of such a non-dual

ontological articulation of the physical and the phenomenal, which is supported by

phenomenological and physiological evidence.

4.3 Breath, rhythmicity, and the overcoming of interior/exterior23

To this seamless continuity—exemplified by the dynamics of the heart system,

between the neurally-anchored physiological circularity of emotions and their

phenomenally-situated expressivity—we would like to graft the primal, self-other

experiential field. In fact, the very organic rhythm of the heart (systole/diastole)

paves the way for intersubjective experience in its broadest sense.

In addition to its pulsating function in blood circulation, which remains centered

in the interior, the heart-rhythm is also originally manifest at the level of the breath.

Inspiration and expiration are part of the basic activity of the living being. Breathing

is regular, ceaseless, and preconscious, which means that it is always there without

my having to pay attention to it. In a sense, this involuntary mode of operation is

characteristic of every inner organ of our body: the liver, the stomach, the intestine;

they constantly operate within our body without our being conscious of their

activity. Interestingly enough, though, the unique characteristic of breathing lies (1)

in the fact that we can quite easily become aware of it, and (2) in its exemplary

situation at the conjunction of inner sensation and outer expression.

Breath, in this way, provides a strictly organic key for the very possibility of the

inner-outer distinction as an intersubjective dynamic between myself and otherness.

20 Aristotle (1941, Book II, Chap. 1), Aristotle (1978, Chap. 11).21 Eckhart (1963); Kant (1998).22 Cf. the articles ‘‘Cœur’’ and ‘‘Gemut’’ in Cassin (2004, Vol. 27, pp. 493–494).23 We do not intend to go into the etymology of breath and its link to soul and life (in Latin, in Greek and

in Hebrew), which will need an article as such. For a first step, cf. Alter 3 (1995): ‘‘L’animal.’’ As for the

link with speech, which is also noted in these traditions, it would require an articulation between the

living being and the human being, which we prefer to leave open here.

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While we are breathing, we literally take otherness within ourselves (welcoming it)

and expulse it outside of ourselves (rejecting it). Breathing is a heart-centered,

organic emergence of the self-other relationship. The inner–outer distinction of the

correlational structure of intentionality might be seen to emerge from recurrent

patterns of inspiration/expiration, somewhat parallel to the way that Varela,

Thompson and Rosch argue that cognitive structures emerge from recurrent

sensorimotor patterns of involvement.24 Hence the central role of breath, for

example, in meditation and prayer activities within religious contexts, according to

which in breathing the most organic preconscious activity of the living being

coincides with a unique relatedness between the living being and the divine. As we

shall argue below, such a co-incidence is absolutely not involuntary or metaphorical

(i.e. used only heuristically in meditation practice). We contend, on the contrary,

that it is quite literal, that the heart is the very organ of the body where such a

coincidence is able to operate. In what sense? Allow us to make a comparison:

breathing is like walking. While walking, you experience the to-and-fro of your

right and left feet and the unity of your body achieved thereby. In short, co-

incidence maintains the distinction, which is the condition of a deeper unity which

we will call an ‘‘antinomic model.’’

These three analyses of the heart—as organic pulsation, as affective thumos, and

as spiritual rhythmicity—attest to what we are calling the structure of ‘‘bodily self-

transcendence’’: the excess of the body over itself. This structure offers an inspiring

and provocative response to the current issue of the explanatory gap, which has been

much discussed in recent years within the debate about consciousness in the fields of

cognitive science and philosophy of mind. While there are proposals in the

philosophy of mind25 and phenomenology26 that acknowledge the irreducibility of

consciousness to neurobiological networks, or that argue that consciousness is

generative of neural dynamics itself.27 To our knowledge, none of these proposals

takes into account the functioning of the heart. The most integrative (i.e., non-

reductionist) analysis of emotions relies exclusively on the neural dynamics of

emotions and searches for an inner continuity with inner lived emotional

experiences.28 Another interesting attempt is to consider (in the Jamesian vein

reinterpreted) that emotions are strictly identical with the physiological changes

undergone by the body.29

As we already mentioned, our own proposal is not directed against such

integrative, enactive approaches. On the contrary, acknowledging the relevance of

such advances, we want to articulate our proposal as it is positioned with respect to

it. When Varela and I first began asking why the heart was never taken into account

as an access to cognition that might offer an interesting alternative to the brain, we

24 Varela et al. (1991).25 Cf. e.g., Chalmers (1995, 1996) (available at http://consc.net/papers/facing.html).26 Given the general anti-naturalism of phenomenological philosophy, the literature here is too extensive

to sight, as it would include the majority of the field.27 Roy et al. (1999).28 Damasio (1994, 1999, 2003).29 Cf. e.g., Pickard (2003).

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were answered (by scientists) that the heart was a sheer muscular organ, poor when

compared to the cognitive complexity of the brain, or (by metaphysicians) that it

had an affective and spiritual meaning that was purely (and fortunately!)

metaphorical, that is, symbolic. The heart was either strictly biological, or strictly

spiritually symbolic! This is precisely our point: the heart system provides us with

something that the brain system, in virtue of its analytical complexity, does not;

namely, the synthetic globality and amplitude of the affectively anchored

intersubjective structure of experience. Recently, there have been phenomenolog-

ically more sophisticated accounts of the ‘‘hard problem’’ from the side of

experience, accounts which might structurally map onto our own concern. However,

they either remain situated at the transcendental level to the exclusion of the

empirical,30 or they remain only on the level of the bodily system.31 In either case,

while they provide relevant indications toward a renewed epistemological direction,

they neglect to explicitly broach the issue of the heart system.

5 Self-previousness: the co-generation of awaiting and being surprised

What we have approached thus far, first at the phenomenologically structural level,

as a circular dynamics of (intersubjective) coupling and (affective) valence, and

then at the physiologically emergent level, as a self-transcendent bodily process

through the heart-experience, now needs to be situated at its specific temporal level.

The next step we would thus like to take is to situate the bodily-intersubjective

dynamics of coupling and valence, which is centered within the self-transcendent

heart-experience, with respect to its own temporalization. As an essential

component of our existence as human beings, the temporality of bodily self-

transcendence through coupling and valence, must be accounted for in order to

articulate its concrete dynamic. We will conduct this description using the generic

term of what we have elsewhere called ‘‘self-previousness.’’32

By ‘‘self-previousness’’ we mean a kind of temporalizing process that is

particularly open to the indetermination of the future. In this respect, the concept

stresses a temporal horizon that Heidegger already underlined, in contrast to

Husserl, who gave more weight to the temporal horizon of the past and to its

possible reactivation. Our proposal is near to Husserl, however, insofar as we

consider such an openness toward the future as not completely indeterminate, but

insofar as the future is under certain conditions anticipated in the form of

‘‘awaiting.’’ We therefore rely here on Husserl’s careful attention to the possible

cognition of events that are not given through the memory of the past. But such

cognition is only possible if one is attentive to the emerging quality of the future

event, to its very process of arising. Husserl calls this kind of presence to the future

‘‘protention.’’ Similarly, ‘‘self-previousness’’ aims to describe the quality of

presence to that which is not programmed or predelineated to happen, that is, a

30 Bruzina (2004).31 Hanna and Thompson (2003).32 Depraz (1998).

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kind of knowledge of that which is not yet given. Self-previousness combines a

sense of anticipation with an attitude of welcoming the radical newness of the event.

This is why we have posed the experience of surprise as an exemplar, in the

emotional realm, of the temporalizing process of ‘‘self-previousness.’’33

5.1 The generic dynamics of self-previousness34

How might the temporality of the processual dynamics of the lived body be more

specifically characterized as an affective and intersubjective structure? Contrary to

Husserl’s presentation of lived time as a living present composed of retentions,

impressions, and protentions, we contend that time-consciousness is guided by the

experience of the future. In contrast to the similar position that Heidegger puts forth

in Being and Time, however, we argue that future-oriented lived time is originally

affect-laden. This does not mean that affectivity has a primacy over temporality, but

rather that the temporalizing process is not a merely formal dynamics, from which

affect can remain absent. In our article about valence, Varela and I contend that

affect is at the core of time in a sense that is meant to abolish the primacy given to

the one or to the other.35

The dynamic of self-previousness proper is articulated according to three phases:

the future component, which we call ‘‘imminence’’; the present component of the

‘‘crisis’’; and the ‘‘aftermath,’’ which corresponds to a possible return to what

happened. The characteristics of the three phases lie in the intrinsic emotional

content of their temporal process. Moreover, the dynamic of self-previousness is

obviously non-linear (i.e., non-successive), given the primacy of futurity to the very

approach of present and past. This primacy of the future is central to the emotion-

embedded time we are attempting to bring into view. If each affective-temporal

phase is itself governed by valence, we arrived at the correlative series outlined in

Table 1.

5.2 The scales of self-previousness

Self-previousness is a circular time-dynamic that unfolds in correlation with

multifarious modes of givenness, which in turn correspond to various scales of time.

It is thus necessary to distinguish different degrees of this time-dynamic and to unfold

its correlative types of affectivity. While ‘‘self-previousness’’ designates a generic,

standard-form of an affect-laden, future-oriented dynamic, we need to articulate and

differentiate levels of time and qualities of affect. The term of ‘‘scale’’ was first

thematized by Varela as a way to overcome the tendency to present an overly formal,

compact, and homogenous characterization of the structure of temporality.36

33 Varela and Depraz (2005).34 For a discussion of the French use of this notion and a more detailed analysis of the concept, see

Depraz (2001b).35 Heidegger (1968); Varela and Depraz (2005).36 Varela (1999).

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Varela first suggested a three-scaled model of affective temporalization, starting

from Husserl’s own distinction between (1) a pre-individual living present,

comprising retention, impression, and protention; (2) an individual constituted time,

linking the horizons of past, present, and future; and (3) a generative collective

temporality, comprising sedimentation, habituality, and reactivation. Varela then

described the types of affect relevant to each of these time-processes: respectively,

(1) unconscious organic fluctuations (valence); (2) individual constituted affects

(affection); and (3) generative collective emotions (emotionality).

In attempt to exhibit its non-successive circularity, Varela and I renamed the

elements of this three-scaled model and added a level so as to more clearly

distinguish an intersubjective, collective emotional temporality from a generative,

phylogenetic one (Table 2).

5.3 Surprise: the emotional quality of unexpectedness38

Having identified the generic temporal structure of self-previousness and specified the

scales of its unfolding, we can now focus on what we take to be the core of this dynamic:

the experience of being surprised. The experience of surprise is involved at each time-

scale, whatever ability we develop to forecast the future event. At the pre-individual

time-scale, even when we are prepared by means of a disciplined stabilization of

attention to, for example, the emergence of a figure against a background in perception,

we can’t help but feel a slight touch of joy or pleasure at the very moment of its

appearance, which attests to our rejoiced surprise. If we are less prepared or completely

unprepared for its perceptual appearance, we might feel disturbed or shocked. As a

matter of fact, however, affectivity is an intrinsic component of the phenomenon of

surprise, varying only in the degree of its positive or negative value.39

Table 2 The scales of self-previousness37

Scale Imminence Crisis Aftermath

Pre-individual Presentiment Instant Remnance

Individual Anticipation Event Working memory

Intersubjective-historical Awaiting Crisis Commemoration

Generative-phylogenetic Futurity Mutation Immemoriality

Valence Hope/fear Marvel/disaster Serenity/depression

Table 1 The valence-phase correlations of self-previousness (Depraz 2001b, p. 103)

Future horizon Present horizon Past horizon

Phase Imminence Crisis Aftermath

Valence Hope/fear Marvel/disaster Serenity/depression

37 Depraz (2001b, p. 103).38 For more details on this matter, cf. Depraz (2003).39 Cf. e.g., Lutz et al. (2002, 2004); Varela and Depraz (2004).

250 N. Depraz

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At the individual time-scale, although, for example, epileptics may develop or be

provided with third- and first-person techniques in order to help them anticipate the

oncoming of a seizure, the arrival of such an event remains somatically shocking, or

at least laden with depressive features.40 At the intersubjective-historical time-scale,

the sudden occurrence of an historical crisis—e.g., the French Revolution or the

economic crisis of 1929—though it may have been awaited, was inevitably

experienced by subjects as a deeply anchored and long-lasting state of turmoil.

Finally, at the generative-phylogenetic scale, the slow emergence of a species

mutation over the course of evolutionary time, characterized as it is by randomness,

is open toward the future in such a way that its scientific observers remain

constantly astonished by the form changes of living organisms.41

A differentiated micro-temporal analysis such as this paves the way for

understanding how the self-present living being generates directly from itself and

globally experiences unexpected novelty. At present, I wish to deal with the subtle

quality of unexpectedness via with the experience of surprise at the very level of the

individual living being. To do this, I will begin by reviewing the development of

Varela’s work from the biological principle of autonomy to the cognitive and

evolutionary principles of enaction and natural drift, respectively. The relation that I

am attempting to articulate between the experience of surprise, or the phenomenal

appearance of novelty, and the emergence of novelty in natural living systems is the

following: regardless of the scale of the time-dynamic, the experience of

unanticipable phenomena has a common structure, which provokes an emotional

shock when it appears. Because such a shock is not absolute, insofar as we are

necessarily related one way or another to that which we experience in surprise, it is

precisely by means of this relatedness that we might anticipate the experience of

surprise itself. I would like to show how Varela explicitly understood the living

being as an intrinsically ‘‘surprised’’ qua ‘‘surprising’’ being.

As early as 1981, in an analysis of the arising of novelty in the natural world,

Varela displays the threads of embodiment and temporality as tightly woven

together.42 In a remarkable synthesis of his groundbreaking work Principles ofBiological Autonomy, Varela offers a renewed presentation of the autonomy of

living beings.43 He employs the idea of autonomy to characterize a system endowed

with a strong inner self-determination, also called self-affirmation. Varela considers

this notion necessary for understanding natural systems—cells, multicellular

organisms, the nervous system or the immune system—because it calls for an

understanding of the system in terms of its inner coherence or ‘‘operational

closure,’’ i.e. as a structural coupling between the self-regulated organism and the

world with which it interacts. Varela makes a clear-cut distinction between

(computational) input coupling and (embodied) structural coupling. The first is

40 Cf. e.g., Le Van Quyen et al. (1999); Varela and Depraz (2004), second part.41 For a general and detailed account of these four time-scales of self-previousness, cf. Depraz (2001b,

pp. 85–102).42 Varela (1983).43 Varela (1980/1987).

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behaviorist, in that it depends upon an exteriority of a representational kind; the

second is phenomenological, governed by an intrinsic interconnectivity and

production of creativity. The phenomenon of novelty is not a product of privation,

due merely to the ignorance or partiality of our perspective; rather it is a positive

phenomenon, proceeding directly from our immanent self-knowledge, understood

as a cultivated ability to question a system in its behavior whilst interacting with it.

Less than 10 years later, Varela develops two concepts to describe what in the

analyses of 1979–1981, given their stress on the autonomous identity of the living

being, had been left relatively in the shadows: namely, the radical unexpectedness,

or contingency of life. In the earlier analyses, the originary world-organism

coupling was at the service of the coherent self-affirmation of the system. In the

analysis of the early nineties,44 the project of enactive cognitive science—at the

developmental level—and the theory of natural drift—at the evolutionary level—

endeavor in parallel fashion to account for the decisive role that nature (both

ancestral and environmental) plays in our organization as living beings. The

enactive approach to embodied cognition requires that we rethink self-organization

as the co-emerging or co-originating of living being and world. The autonomy of the

living being proceeds directly from this reciprocal process of structural coupling.

‘‘Enaction’’ designates this mutual emergence, emphasizing its practical operation

and its distinction from any representational or hermeneutical process.

The notion of ‘‘natural drift’’ represents an interesting attempt to remove the

representationalist presuppositions that underlie the adaptationist notion of ‘‘fitness’’

in evolutionary biology, while still accounting for the possible arising of unknown

events that would affect and transform the inner dynamic of the living being.

Against the notion of an optimal adaptation (an efficiency coping) of the living

being to/with the world, understood as a regular process of progressive fitness, the

idea of natural drift describes the evolution of the living being as a co-determination

of the self and its world in which both results are interwoven or co-implicated.

This inner coupling between living being and world requires a more explicit

study of its intrinsic temporality. Therefore, in ‘‘The specious present: A neuro-

phenomenology of time-consciousness,’’ Varela directly tackles the issue of the

neural-dynamic roots of the horizons of present experience, while relying on

Husserl’s detailed account of time-consciousness.45 What is at stake here is to bring

together the third-person account of the dynamic synchronization of long-distance

neuronal assemblages in the brain, and the first-person account of lived time. The

underlying hypothesis is that the two accounts describe processes that are not only

isomorphic but that literally co-generate each other, that is, produce both (1) new

experience and (2) renewed categories on both sides. The nature of the co-

generation we describe is clearly twofold: it is (1) a phenomenal-biological co-

generation in which the co-generative elements are (a) conscious activity and (b)

neuronal activity, which co-generate each other (along the lines, e.g., of

contemporary neuroscientific research on neuro-plasticity); but it is also, correla-

tively, (2) a discursive co-generation in which the co-generative elements are (c) the

44 Varela, et al. (1991, Chaps. 8 and 9).45 Varela (1999).

252 N. Depraz

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discursive accounts of phenomenologists and (c) the discursive accounts of

biologists, which commingle to co-generate further cross-disciplinary accounts.

These two levels—i.e. the discursive and the (prediscursive) phenomenal/biolog-

ical—clearly need to be conceptually disarticulated, but they also need to be

experientially coupled and assumed as interwoven. If not, the conceptual-discursive

will, in the final instance, tend to unduly guide the co-generation.

This two-fold analysis of the living present led Varela to insist on the role of

protention as playing a generating part in the constitution of the extended now, and

on the part played by the emotional dimension therein. The generative role of

protention and its emotional component, which are not explicitly present in

Husserl’s analysis (though they are implicitly indicated), become central in Varela’s

description of the now, because the neuro-dynamic analysis itself seems to support

them. ‘‘Being present’’ comes to refer to the cultivation of the ability to anticipate

the unexpected, and to becoming aware of the strong emotional quality of such an

‘‘unexpectation.’’ Welcoming what is radically unexpected is the very experience of

the surprise.

5.4 Is the time of the heart a ‘‘self-previous’’ time?

How are self-previousness and the heart-system related? That is, how is this temporal

dynamic related to the rhythmicity of the heart as a physiological system? This is, of

course, a very difficult problem both philosophically and scientifically, so I won’t be

able to conduct any kind of full-blown investigation of the problem in the present

paper. But something needs to be said about the connection between the phenomenal

and the physiological, i.e., between self-previousness and heart rhythmicity.

The ‘‘time of the heart’’ is characterized by its ‘‘rhythm’’ or ‘‘beat.’’ A heart

rhythm has the temporal characteristics of regularity (repetition and recurrence) and

harmony (stability and pendularity), as is also exemplified in musical and poetic

meter, as well as in nature. What we generally construe as objective time (i.e., the

clock time of quantitative measurement) is phenomenally lived primarily as

aesthetic and psychological. In a sense, the experience of rhythm undoes the

distinction between objective and subjective time; the heart-rate embodies such an

experience.

The pre-consciously lived, recurrent regularity of the organic beating of the heart

intrinsically includes an emotional component that contributes to the way it is

subjectively thrown in relief as lived. The heart quickens while one is expecting

news, it slows down when one gets bored, it flutters when one experiences strong

emotions (such as those related to trauma). Indeed, through its rhythms, the heart

functions as an organic, pre-conscious recorder of every emotional fluctuation of my

inner psychic life. The temporal fluctuations of the heart-rhythm range from

‘‘normal’’ speeding or slowing; to pathological arrhythmia, bradycardia, tachycar-

dia, tachyarrhythmia (seizures); to the liminal rhythms of fainting, cardiac arrest, or

heart attack. The notion of a non-precarious, absolutely regular heartbeat—though

sometimes considered ‘‘normal’’—is completely idealistic; it is as abstract and

fictive as the idea of an un-affected self. As lived temporality is intrinsically

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valence-laden, so the heart is immanently permeated with an always potentially self-

altered rhythm. In that respect, the temporal rhythm of the heart is immanently

‘‘self-previous’’: it is open to the possibility of alteration due to unexpected (i.e.,

surprising) emotional events, while basically remaining within a temporality

composed of awaited regular recurrences.

Of course, the details of the phenomenal/physiological connection qua self-

previousness/heart-rhythmicity remain to be worked out by future transcendental-

empirical research that would contribute to investigating the possibility of such a

connection.46 Here we wish only to suggest such a possibility by proposing the

heart-centered approach as an alternative to the current route through neural

networks. The analysis of self-previousness is thus intended as a recasting, at the

temporal level, of the heart-system proposal we made above in response to the

problem of the explanatory gap.

6 The rainbow: a generative network of emotions

We have outlined how (Sect. 2) coupling, on the intersubjective level, and (Sect. 3)

valence, on the affective level, serve as the two correlative keystones of (Sect. 4)

our heart-proposal about the explanatory gap, and how (Sect. 5) self-previousness

provides us with the possible temporality of the heart. We now offer the ‘‘rainbow

of emotions’’ as a descriptive model of the heart system in each of its possible

concrete emotions. What the heart-system model contributes at the conceptual,

theoretical level can be developed and validated at an experiential, descriptive level

by taking into account a network of concrete and polarized emotions. In moving

from the heart to the rainbow of emotions, we move, metaphorically speaking, from

the hearth to its radiating energies or from the sun to the rays. We intend our

description of the ‘‘rainbow of emotions’’ as a phenomenological validation of our

heart-model proposal.

The model of the rainbow-structure was first suggested and delineated by Varela

as a way to show the concrete valence of emotions in their intricacy with

intersubjective coupling and with ontological existential underpinning.

Varela’s scheme (Fig. 1) provides the four components that we are looking for,

though they carry different names: ‘‘valence’’ is the general transversal component

(the horizontal line); ‘‘concern’’ refers to the intersubjective component; ‘‘being’’

corresponds to the time-dynamic of self-previousness; ‘‘assessment’’ expresses the

heart component. As such, however, the scheme remains a bit mysterious and in

need of explication. It is for this very reason that I propose the scheme here.47 There

is a central focus, which corresponds to the crossing of the three directions or axis,

that remains undetermined. If I follow the image of the rainbow, I may determine

46 Allow me to mention the ongoing neurodynamical work done in the Laboratoire de Neurosciences

Cognitives et Imagerie Cerebrale (Paris) by Michel Le Vanquyen and some of his students on heart

rhythms, as well as a common project (both empirical and philosophical) we have with Diego Cosmelli

based on the experience of breathing.47 Varela did not suggest a detailed understanding of his scheme. While, I could proffer some ideas and

hypotheses, I was left with the task of explicating it.

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this center as the color ‘‘white,’’ from which every color radiates like a prism, each

linked to a particular emotion. The center might refer to the bodily subject itself—to

the heart as ‘‘body of the body’’—which generates the multifarious emotions from

him- or herself like the rays of the sun. The horizontal ‘‘valence’’ axis, which is

situated upward in the scheme and provides it with its general dynamic, seems to

confirm this interpretation, since it unfolds on both sides from the self (self-to-

others/self-in-public), narrowly linking it to the coupling experience of self and

other. In any case, the bodily subject is ‘‘white,’’ i.e. the non-color containing all

colors, insofar as it is the zero-point of valence. The bodily subject is generative of

valence, as well as its modes of relationship with others, its temporalization, and its

heart-bodily self-transcendent dynamic.

Another striking dimension of the scheme is that as it proceeds from the center to

the periphery (whichever axis one considers), it correlatively proceeds from

negative to positive emotions. The scheme thus dynamically represents the double

movement of opening and closing, dilatation and contraction. The more I open up

toward others, the more I am led to welcome them, to be receptive to their positive

and negative emotions, to their joy or to their suffering; the more I turn toward

myself, the more I contain my own feelings, be they negative (e.g., despise) or

positive (e.g., admiration). This dichotomy is, of course, abstract and simplistic.

Sometimes opening up toward others occasions a great deal of pain and turning

Fig. 1 Varela’s rainbow of emotions

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inwards can have a rejuvenative affect. However, I would contend that the suffering

linked to opening toward others contains a possibility of self-freedom, whereas the

positive affect generated by an exclusive inwardness ultimately leaves one detached

and dissatisfied. The very dynamic of the rainbow is activated and created by the

pulsation of the heart as the source of the generative bodily subject, where affective

valence and the intersubjective self-other fold play together. Moreover, insofar as

surprise is the experience of the very process of self-previousness, temporality

functions as the very source of the heart-dynamic.48

7 Conclusion

Our suggestion that the brain-centered model be displaced in favor of a heart-

centered model is an attempt to contribute to the general effort of research in

phenomenology and cognitive science to move ‘‘beyond’’—i.e. beyond ‘‘the gap,’’49

beyond traditional ‘‘paradigms.’’50 We suggest that the investigative elaboration of a

heart-centered model might lead toward a renewed understanding of the body as a

deeply unitary and circular experience—the heart as the ‘‘body of the body’’—in

which neural-dynamics, mental-dynamics, physiological-dynamics, and lived

intersubjective experiences are integrated and immanently articulated, that is,

restored in their mutual generativity. Whereas the brain-model, which is prevalent

among scientists of cognition, is neurobiologically-centered and often excludes/

reduces the phenomenal dimension, and whereas the consciousness-model, which is

favored by many philosophers of cognition, is phenomenally-centered and often

excludes/reduces the natural dimension, the heart-model offers an alternative,

affectively-centered model that opens up a greater possibility of unifying both poles.

Of course, many directions remain to be explored. For example, on the

descriptive level of a phenomenological psychology, we need to further investigate

the relevance of these different emotions through specific regional studies, e.g. on

shame, etc. On the interpretive level of a hermeneutical phenomenology, we need to

develop a structured comparison between the dynamic, generative typology of the

rainbow of emotions and the classical philosophical (e.g., Descartes and Spinoza)

48 In my view some crucial emotions are still lacking here: (1) ‘‘hope,’’ which the French language would

differentiate in ‘‘espoir’’ or ‘‘esperance,’’ and which would well fit in the ‘‘Being’’/Self-previousness’’

axis along with ‘‘joy’’ and opposed to ‘‘despair’’; (2) ‘‘happiness’’ will take place on the same axis near to

‘‘serenity’’; (3) suffering, pity, compassion may be situated on the ‘‘Concerns’’/Intersubjectivity axis,

between fear and anxiety for the first one, with respect and love for the two others; (4) as for ‘‘anxiety,’’ I

would situate it on the ‘‘Being’’/Self-previousness axis, and not on the ‘‘Concerns’’/Intersubjectivity one,

because it has to do with my ontological state more than with my relationship with others; (5) as for

‘‘shame,’’ we have in French two possible translations of it, either as ‘‘honte’’ or as ‘‘pudeur.’’ ‘‘Pudeur’’

is a positive emotion, which has to do with tact, modesty and a sense of decency. Furthermore, it seems to

enter into a certain way of being with others, more than merely being in public, as ‘‘honte,’’ which is a

more negative feeling associated with guilt and disgrace; finally I find that ‘‘self-esteem’’ and ‘‘pride’’ are

in English basically positive emotions, whereas in French they possess an intrinsic ambivalence: ‘‘self-

esteem’’ is at the same time ‘‘estime de soi’’ (+) and ‘‘vanite’’ (-); ‘‘pride’’ is ‘‘fierte’’ (+) and ‘‘orgueil’’(-). But these are minor complements, additions or modifications to the general scheme.49 Roy et al. (1999).50 Bruzina (2004).

256 N. Depraz

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and psychological typologies of emotions. The philosophers of the seventeenth

century provided typologies of the emotions which are motivated by metaphysical

concerns. Descartes, for instance, foregrounds a series of bodily-based emotional

couples (e.g., love/hate, joy/sadness) that remain primarily brain-derived.51 He

gives a central role to the brain in such a way as to satisfy the demand for coherence

with his metaphysical dualism between body and mind.52

In contrast to metaphysical concerns based on dualism or monism, the classical

psychological typologies stem from different motivations, probably linked to the

experimental research in neurophysiology which is concurrently discovering the

brain-areas, localization, and neural functioning of emotions. Our own attempt to

provide a typology of emotions is motivated by the search for a non-dual, dynamic

ontology based on processual differentiations, by the need to move away from static

emotional typologies, which are insufficiently concerned with the emergence of the

emotional drive, toward a dynamic typology that insists on such an experiential

genesis.

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51 This is so despite Descartes claim that the brain is connected to the extremities by nerve fibers through

which pass ‘‘animal spirits,’’ which he defines as ‘‘the most lively and finest parts of the blood, which

have been rarified by the heat in the heart, [and which] constantly enter the cavities of the brain’’ (331),

thus creating a link between the heart and the brain. Cf. Descartes (1985[1649]).52 It is interesting to note that Descartes (following Plato and Aristotle) gave the emotion of ‘‘wonder’’

(astonishment) a privileged place among the primary emotions, calling it ‘‘the first of all the passions.’’

He claims that it is the most ‘‘philosophical’’ passion precisely because it is not ‘‘accompanied by any

change in the heart or in the blood, such as occurs in the case of the other passions. The reason for this is

that it has as its object not good or evil, but only knowledge of the thing that we wonder at.’’ As such, he

argues, wonder ‘‘makes us disposed to acquire scientific knowledge.’’ He concludes from this that wonder

only has relation to the brain because it is the brain ‘‘in which are located the organs of the senses used in

gaining knowledge.’’ Through Descartes’ analysis of wonder, the brain is again given a primacy as more

generative of philosophical and scientific knowledge than the heart, which is designated as the

metaphysical seat of affects.

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